LONDON: Tens of thousands of people across the UK were left without power on Saturday morning after Storm Darragh hit the country with strong winds and caused pre-Christmas travel disruption.

The UK’s Met Office had issued a rare red alert for high winds overnight to Saturday morning, covering parts of Wales and southwest England.

The government warned three million people living in the area with a siren-like alert on their phones to stay at home on Friday night.

Secretary Jonathan Reynolds said the storm posed a challenging situation. “About three million homes will have had the emergency alert system to their mobile phone. I would just encourage anyone who has had that to follow the advice,” Reynolds told Sky News on Saturday.

Darragh is also expected to bring heavy rain through the weekend, with more than 100 flood warnings and alerts in place across the UK.

One man died after a tree fell onto his van during the storm, police in Lancashire, northwest England said.

In Wales, the Met Office estimated gusts of up to 93mph, which knocked out power for over 50,000 people, according to the PA news agency. Power cuts affected 86,000 homes in England, Scotland and Wales, according to the Energy Networks Association.

Trains were disrupted or suspended on several routes including from Glasgow to Edinburgh in Scotland, and between Cambridge and Stansted Airport in eastern England.

Dublin Airport said “a number of flights scheduled for Saturday have been cancelled by airlines” due to the storm.

Darragh comes two weeks after Storm Bert battered much of Britain, causing “devastating” flooding in parts of Wales and knocking out power to thousands of homes in Ireland.

Published in Dawn, December 8th, 2024